Vampire Princess Lina
by Thrythlind
Summary: The spiritualist Zelgadis is hired to exorcise a girl possessed by some demon. While investigating he encounters a strange girl named Lina.
1. Dark Kyoto

Dark Kyoto, part 1  Dark Kyoto, part 1  
  
  
  
The young couple strolled side by side in the empty, night-shrouded park.  
"So I'll see you then?" the boy asked. The girl giggled and amiably bumped against them, it was obvious that this was a rather young and naive pair. They probably weren't out of high school yet.  
"Of course silly," she answered. "But I have to get home now." There was the sound of something passing by quickly, but when they turned, neither saw anything.  
"It was just the wind," the boy said with a sigh of relief. "Do you want me to walk you home Ryoko?"  
"No, I'll be fine and it's so far out of your way," she said. The boy started to leave cautiously. "Go on, silly, I'll be fine."  
"Well, okay, if you're sure," he then starts at a fast walk in the direction opposite to which they had been travelling.  
"Bye Kenji!!" he was out of sight for perhaps three seconds when the "wind" passed by again. She turned to face it, but by then whatever it was moved behind her. "Wha--!" Then something all cloaked in white descended on her. Her scream was cut off as something sharp bit her neck.  
Kenji arrived back as the thing in white vanished again, he only caught a fleeting glimpse of it.  
"Ryoko!" he called. The girl seemed chalk white and she merely stared forward. "Ryoko are you---?" Then Ryoko toppled forward lifelessly, striking the ground...like dead weight. "RYOKO!!!!"  
  
A woman was looking through various types of cloth for sale at a small store. The dealer had to go in the back for some more rolls of cloth, and she was alone in the front of the store. She was a woman in her late twenties with brownish red hair and a bored sort of look on her face.  
Some noise from outside made her turn around and look out into the darkened, rain-spattered streets. She continued staring out the glass, seeing nothing. There was something wrong, a stillness which alerted the deepest instincts of her human soul. Then a thin thread-width crack spread through the glass window.  
  
The woman's body lay back, staring sightlessly into space, all wrapped in multi-colored cloth. Her skin was the same deathly pale shade as Ryoko, only now the effect was illuminated by the store lights. Every so often a brighter flash absorbed the area as voices spoke over the dead.  
"This is the fifth one, right?"  
"Yes, and everyone is drained of blood."  
"Just like a vampi--"  
"Don't say such stupid things!!" Somebody snapped. "What if the media heard?"  
As they talked two figures stood outside in the rain behind the small crowd of on-lookers. One was a figure in a dark purple cloak, holding an umbrella over the other. The second of the pair was a young girl with fiery red hair and a face half-concealed in darkness. She was dressed in a simple robe, and her mouth could be seen to be formed into grim line.  
  
The young man stepped out of the train station oddly separate from the rest of the crowd. He scanned the area about him, brushing violet strands of hair out of his range of vision. His sight immediately settled on the spiritualist shop accross the street. His eyes narrowed as the unintended insult of the place's existence struck and was filtered out by long experience with similar sites.  
"Spiritualist," he said, irritably. "Why is it that all the con-artists and flakes get the money, while those of us with _real_ spiritual powers have to scrape by." He looked at the slip of paper again and checked the address against his map of the city. He was about to ask for directions when someone addressed him,  
"Zelgadis-San?" he turned and saw a pale and tired man standing before him.  
"Are you my employer?" Zelgadis asked calmly. He looked the man over, he certainly seemed tired and emotionly drained. That might mean that he was just another desparate parent reaching for a last hope. Or it might mean that this was a real case of possession.  
"Yes," the man said. "I'll lead you to our estate."  
"Lead away," Zelgadis agreed. After several minutes of walking they came to a high walled section of land near a small park. As they approached the interest, Zelgadis sneered at the abundance of garlic he saw hanging around the gates. "Such supertitious nonsense," he muttered under his breath.  
The estate was quite extensive for the space constrictive regions of Japan, and very well kept as well. Inside the high wall they came to a very ordered grounds with a small moat. As Zelgadis followed his host, now joined by the man's wife who was equally drained in appearance, he noticed a number of large koi swimming through the moat as they passed over the bridge. There was something odd about this house that he couldn't lay his finger on.  
They walked for almost a full two minutes before they actually came to the main building's door. The door slid open on a long, wide, empty hall in the center of which a young girl, maybe fourteen years old, lay with her eyes closed. The girl was breathing shallowly, and her skin was a pale color that contrasted sharply with the black tresses curling down to her shoulders.  
"Is this the child?"  
"Yes," the mother answered. "We've tried everything, but none of the doctors could find anything wrong with poor Amelia."  
"So I am a last resort then?" Zelgadis asked as he settled in to examine the girl. The parents winced at the mild reproach.  
"You must understand..." the father started.  
"Don't worry," Zelgadis caught him. "I'm always a last resort, and can rarely do any good, true cases of possession are..." He stopped as his hands passed over the child's heart. "A fox spirit!!" He thought, turning to the parents he calmly spoke. "There may be something I can do after all." Zelgadis stabbed a dagger-like wand into the floor and began chanting as he rubbed the rings on his left index and middle fingers together.  
Much later, Zelgadis was resignedly putting away his tools.  
"I must apologize," he told the parents. "It seems that this is beyond my skill, don't worry about payment. No reward for no results."  
"Did you hear about the vampire?" the mother asked for no apparent reason. Zelgadis narrowed his eyes and paused in his preparations to leave.  
"Don't talk such nonsense," the father ordered.  
"But I know I saw a man all in a white cloak out there one night," the mother insisted. "And it's the heart of summer!"  
"Hmm," Zelgadis noted. "It appears that I do not have to give up that payment quite yet after all. Excuse me, I have some investigating to do." Zelgadis and the girl's parents stood up, they bowed to each other and then he left out the door. He still had the feeling that he was missing something, but what that could be, he hadn't yet figured out.  
As he was exiting the house he turned to see a young boy, probably from a high school nearby, staring at the walls and holding a small aiguchi.  
"Need anything?" he asked sarcastically. The boy turned to him, passionate rage blazing across his face.  
"I saw that....that thing go into that house!!!" he shouted. "And I'm going to kill that vampire!!" Zelgadis raised one eyebrow.  
  
"So your girlfriend was...."  
"The vampire's first victim," Kenji nodded. "I had just left her." He recalled, briefly, those last few seconds in which he had found Ryoko standing dead, staring into space.  
"And you saw what did it?"  
"Only a glimpse," Kenji groaned. "A hideous thing in white that moved to fast to be human. And it went into THAT house!!" He pointed furiously at the Sairyuun estate.  
"Perhaps you should let me handle this," Zelgadis suggested calmly.  
"I am never going to rest until that MONSTER is destroyed!" He launched the knife forward, obviously aiming for the tree a little to left of Zelgadis's head. The blade was going to miss, but Zelgadis wanted to push a point anyway. Without moving from his seated position Zelgadis incapcitated the weapon arm and forced Kenji to drop the knife.  
"If you can't handle me," Zelgadis noted. "How can you handle a 'vampire?' " Zelgadis stood up, releasing the boy as he did. "Go home, grieve, and leave this to me." He walked calmly away, wondering whether his spiritual skills would be stronger if he hadn't spent the time on his physical ones. There was rarely any need for such things in his line of work.  
  
"Okay there have been five victims so far," Zelgadis noted. "A housewife, a college student, a ten-year old girl, a nurse, and a grandmother. I wonder if this thing has a bias against men." He was walking back through the small park, on the way to the Sairyuun estate, when a breeze suddenly blasted through the air around him. He found it difficult to see as a mist rose up around him.  
He was so shocked that he barely had time to think "I guess not..." as something with grayish-withered flesh surrounded by a white cloak descended down to him. He was about to break from the momentary freeze when he felt another pair of presences and the monster ran away.  
"Damn," he heard a female voice say. "Got away." He turned to see a young red head in pale, elegant clothes sitting on top the shinto arch at the park's entrance. She couldn't have been more than seventeen years old, but she bore a quiet confidence that belied her outward appearance. She turned to look into the face of the cloaked figure behind her. The figure carried an ornate staff and wore a mask that bore a smiling painted face.  
"Who are you?"  
"Fangs..." she started ticking the points on her fingers. "...superhuman strength....speed...fog...blazing eyes.....Just like all the old legends. Very faithful to the legends isn't it?" She said the last to her silent companion, with a sarcastic edge.  
"Do you know what's going on here?" Zelgadis demanded, brandishing the small vajra again. The girl turned to him, as if noticing that he was there for the first time.  
"I don't think you should get involved any further in this," she told him, holding out her hand. "Zelgadis." She waved her hand down, and his eyes closed, when they opened again the girl and her companion were gone, with a trailing laugh on the wind the only evidence she was ever there.  
"Wait!" Zelgadis called angrily. "Who are you? How do you know my name?!!"  
  
  
  
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	2. Dark Kyoto

Dark Kyoto, part 2  Dark Kyoto, part 2  
  
  
  


"Now what was that last night," Zelgadis asked himself as he walked through the crowded daylit streets. "I don't think she was human." He paused at a booth where a gaggle of school girls were giggling over the collection of cheap jewelry and knick knacks. A small silver cross caught his eye for a moment. 

He looked at it somewhat whimsically. He couldn't believe that he was actually planning on buying the trinket and wearing it. He didn't believe in demons, at least not demons that walked, talked and could rip your throat out in the blink of an eye. Up until now he had only dealt with immaterial, hard to sense "spirits" that might have been some sort of psychosomatic phenomena. 

"She wasn't human," Zelgadis decided then. He turned to the booth keeper and bought the little cross. "She exuded a...presence of some sort that made that other creature turn tail and run." The crowds faded around him as he began to pass through the small park yet again. It was much less threatening in the daylight, but there was still something. Then he heard that laugh, the laugh from last night. 

He quickly and quietly moved towards the sound taking cover behind some of the thick trees of the park. He saw Kenji standing in a clearing across from a stone statue where the girl from last night sat in front of her purple cloaked friend. Zelgadis watched, half entranced as the girl beckoned Kenji towards her. 

The red-headed girl seemed to float towards him, with Kenji just staring into space. As Zelgadis watched she leaned in, closed her eyes and bit into the boys neck. Kenji blinking was the first sign of life that the boy had shown so far. 

"Kyuuketsi!!!!" Zeladis shouted, snatching the cross from his throat and launching it toward the girl like a holy bullet. He winced as the girl, still feeding from the boy's neck, caught the trinket. A second or two later the girl pulled herself away from the boy. 

"H..how.." Zelgadis stuttered backing away. 

"This is pretty," the girl said, flashing a lopsided grin his way. "Thanks." 

"How can you be out like this in broad daylight?" Zelgadis demanded before something grabbed him from behind and he seemed to be pulled out of the world. 

The world was a place of twisting, black shadows, and flickering blood-red lights. The place seemed to shimmer as if the realm was filled with an air warping heat. Sound was muted, and the girl's laughter seemed to be the only thing Zelgadis could hear. 

He watched, helpless as the red-headed girl brandished a glittering ball before the still passive Kenji. She floated impishly above the blackish-red ground, ignoring the pull of gravity, if there was such a thing in this world. Kenji reached out, silently begging for the glittering ball in the red-head's hands. She tossed the ball towards him, it floated slowly, as if the air were actually water. The boy caught the ball and held it close to him, then he lay down on the ground and seemed to fall asleep. The image of the boy then faded silently away from Zelgadis's sight. 

Zelgadis stared across from his position at the purple cloaked figure in the smiling mask. The girl seemed to descend like a rock out of the alien, sky and danced about a moment, staring at the cloaked figure as if asking for advice. Then she hopped over to him. He glared at her with what he knew was impotent fury. 

"Who are you?" Zelgadis asked. 

"My name is Lina," she told him sweetly. "I thought I suggested that you back off of this matter." 

"Do you actually think I'm going to listen to a monster?" he demanded. She winced and glared at him angrily for a brief moment. Then she shook her head sadly. 

"Why do people always say that?" she asked seriously. "What makes me a monster?" 

"You prey on the blood of the living," Zelgadis noted angrily. Lina laughed, her thin shoulders shaking with each quiet explosion. 

"I am alive," Lina noted. "And to stay that way I must feed on the blood of beautiful people. This is as natural to me as breathing. And I can grant eternal life, not like that...imposter." 

"You mean the other vampire?" Zelgadis demanded. 

"Vampire," Lina laughed again. "He believes its a vampire, how about that, Xellos? That thing is just an imitation, a blood-thirsty beast. Now, I really think that you should be leaving this alone from now on. Good-bye, Zelgadis." The girl and then her companion vanished from sight, and then Zelgadis was back in the normal world, the sound of Lina's trailing laughter coming to him softly on the wind. 

He immediately stood up and ran to where Kenji was still staring blankly into space. 

"Come on," he said. "We should get you to a doctor." 

"Why?" Kenji asked. "I feel fine." 

"Fine?" Zelgadis repeated. "Yesterday you were determined to avenge your love beyond all common sense." 

"I'm fine now," Kenji said. "Everything is so calm." He sat down on one of the swings behind him. He let the child's swing carry him back and forth, while he merely stared into space. Zelgadis just looked on, in shock.   
  
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	3. Dark Kyoto

  
Title Dark Kyoto, part 3 /Title  
  
  
** Dark Kyoto, part 3  
  
**  
  
  
Zelgadis didn't remain shocked for long. It wasn't as if Kenji could   
stand against him in a normal circumstance. In his current apathetic state,   
Kenji didn't even try to stop Zelgadis from forcing him to the hospital.   
Zelgadis had been heading that way anyway.  
"We can't find anything wrong with that young man you brought in,"   
Zelgadis didn't think that they would, but he had to make the effort. He   
called up the image of the golden-eyed girl with the fiery hair drinking out   
of the boy's cartoid. Her eyes closed and an expression on her face more   
akin to a lover's caress than a beast's feeding.  
"We'll keep him for observation," the doctor continued. "And then   
release him, you said he was bitten?"  
"That is what I believe those marks on the neck are."  
"Oh, but did you see what?" There was a gleeful light in the doctor's   
eye as he decided to pick at Zelgadis' profession. "It wasn't a vampire was   
it?" Zelgadis considered answering that seriously, but thought against it.   
He would end up in the asylum right next to Kenji.  
"No, I'm afraid not," Zelgadis lied bitterly. The doctor seemed   
moderately amused.  
"They're human teeth," the doctor told him. "And not very deep, I think   
the young man's date may have gotten a little frisky."  
"That might be an accurate statement," Zelgadis said, annoyed. "And on   
the other business?"  
"The medical history of Amelia Wil Tesla Sairuun?" the doctor said,   
standing up and turning to a file cabinet. "I don't understand your interest   
in her, and I doubt the orphanage would hire a spiritualist under any   
circumstance."  
"The orphanage?" Zelgadis rose one violet eyebrow. "What would she be   
doing in an orphanage, her parents seem well off enough." The doctor stopped   
rifling through his files to stare at him for a moment.  
"Her parents?" he repeated. "Yes, they were quite rich, and she stands   
to inherit quite an amount once she hits her majority."  
"Were?" That something that had been bothering him earlier in the estate   
was now batting at his mind's door with great leathern-wings.  
"They died, about a year ago," the doctor found the file and flipped it   
open. He scanned it briefly and then set the file down on his desk.   
Zelgadis narrowed his eyes, there were supernatural presences all over this   
case, and he'd only noticed the most obvious of them. He didn't like what   
this said of his skills and powers.  
'Don't assume yet,' Zelgadis thought to himself. 'They might just be   
imposters.' "How did they die?" Zelgadis asked.  
"A car accident," the doctor told him. He sat down behind the desk and   
flipped through the file again. "The injuries to the parents were extensive,   
we couldn't do anything to save them. The girl's injuries were not quite as   
bad, but we needed to perform a blood transfusion."  
"And what is the problem with that?" Zelgadis asked.  
"There was something odd about the patient's blood," the doctor answered,   
Zelgadis almost sneered at the way he kept referring to her as "the patient"   
or "the girl."  
"We almost killed her when she rejected the first transfusion," he   
continued.  
"And how did she manage to survive?"  
"The father survived long enough to order us to use his and his wife's   
blood for the procedure. It worked."  
"Did she know of this?"  
"I don't know for certain, but I heard, that she used to call herself a   
vampire at the orphanage. Another reason for my joke earlier."  
"I see," Zelgadis stood up and started to leave. "Thank you, that is   
very interesting to know."  
  
As Zelgadis stepped into the estate again he realized what had been   
bothering him. The estate was so large and well-maintained that there was no   
way that two people could keep it up. Despite this there were no servants of   
any kind, just Amelia's shadow-like "parents."  
He paused as the pale figures walked towards him and took in the air.   
The tranquility he had glossed over before was an illusion. The place was   
waiting, silently rolling and shifting behind the veils of the physical   
world. He followed the parents in feeling the strain of the place.   
Everything was pushed to the point of snapping, he could feel it. The light   
was slipping below the horizon and Zelgadis found that he did not like the   
look of the place in the night a all.  
Zelgadis sat down before Amelia and glanced at her parents.  
"Ghosts are all I need," he muttered. Then Amelia's eyes snapped open,   
revealing bright violet orbs that contrasted sharply with the pale white skin   
surrounding them. Skin almost as white as the bulk of the girl's eyes.  
  
"Xellos, he's getting away again!" Lina shouted, alternately running and   
flying in pursuit of the white cloaked thing. The purple cloaked figure   
vanished from sight and appeared in front of the creature, which dodged aside   
with a swift worm-like motion. It leaped over the small moat as Lina landed   
on the water glaring at it angrily.  
The creature paused a moment to face the apparition of the young girl   
standing like a ballarina on the top of the water, ripples extending outward   
from the single toe that touched the surface. It briefly considered fighting   
and thought better of it, after it finished it would have more power. Until   
then, the kyuuketsi was to be avoided. Then both parties were moving again.  
  
"Amelia?" Zelgadis asked. The girl turned to him with a smile on her   
face, but otherwise it was as if she didn't even see Zelgadis. The girl   
reached out to try and embrace the surprised spiritualist in what seemed an   
affectionate hug. Zelgadis backed away from her, recent events teaching him   
to be suspicious. As he did so he noticed the non-responsive parents fade   
away into nothing.  
Zelgadis had no idea what to do, and Amelia was standing up to walk   
toward him now. Then the double doors leading to the grounds slammed open,   
bathing the area in a brilliant light. Zelgadis saw a floating Lina descend   
towards his charge, and, by instinct, moved to intercept whatever was going   
to happen.  
Lina didn't even bother to look up as her purple cloaked companion placed   
himself in Zelgadis's way. For the second time in the day, Zelgadis was   
forced to watch helpless as Lina bit into someone's neck. The girl, weakened   
already by a possession of unknown type, still reacted more to this than   
Kenji had.  
"You fiend!!" Zelgadis yelled as Lina laid the fainted body of Amelia on   
the ground and wiped the blood from her mouth. "You'll kill anybody for a   
meal won't you!!"  
Lina turned to him and shook her head laughing quietly.  
"The true killer is about to show," she told him. Then something grew   
out of the blankets Amelia had been lying on. Zelgadis backpedalled as the   
bulk of the thing became obvious to him. It was a great worm like creature   
with a thin probiscus on what must have been its nose.  
"This is the thing that was using Amelia's soul," Lina told him, letting   
it circle her calmly as if it were no real concern. Indeed, the actions of   
the monster seemed furitive and frantic compared to her cold-hearted   
confidence.  
The creature was surrounded on all sides by eerie blue flames hanging in   
mid-air as if atop invisible candles. The creature writhed and bucked,   
roaring out into the night. The initial shock over, Zelgadis shook his head   
clear and moved forward. In his hand he brandished his small vajra wand. He   
began chanting and pressing forward, and the creature's struggles seemed to   
become faster.  
Lina and Xelloss turned to face the human with a hint of curiousity and   
confusion. An arc of blue flame drew them out of the brief distraction.   
Lina watched as the flame arced toward her, laughing. It slowly died as it   
reached out toward her, and would have vanished completely into nothing. The   
impact of someone pushing her aside made it heard to concentrate fully on the   
defense.  
Lina heard a cry of pain and looked to where the spiritualist had taken   
the weakened blast to save her.  
"Idiot!" she shouted. She turned to the worm creature and slowly the   
blue flames around it vanished to be replaced by red. "Xellos!" The cloaked   
figure appeared behind her and held out his hand. Lina copied the motion   
and a small red flame burst into life inside her palm. She reached up and   
handed it to Xelloss. The purple cloaked figure took it silently, holding it   
just behind her.  
Zelgadis, struggled to a sitting position and watched as black slates   
appeared surrounding the worm creature. Thin rays lanced out from the flame   
in Xellos hand, seeming like bloody lightning, and charred a name into the   
slates about the creature.  
"Ra-en?" he said weakly.  
"The name of this Shinma. It is known to your kind as Bakemono I think,"   
Lina confirmed for him. "It dwells in dreams, in exchange for your soul it   
makes your dreams real."  
"With this....thing's name discovered, it loses all its power, correct?"   
Zelgadis asked, still sore from the fire blast earlier.  
"Yes, and all that remains is to seal it away," she turned to face him.   
"You should be dead." It was not stated with relief or obvious emotion of   
any kind. It was merely a statement of fact. The girl's golden eyes told a   
different story, there was a hunger there that was directed at him. A roar   
from the beast took the girl's mind off him.  
"Seal him away!" she shouted, and Zelgadis watched as the slim, gloved   
hands of Xellos crushed the flame in his palm. The beast roared in final   
pain as it seemed to fold up into an impossibly small space. Above and below   
him hexagonal holes opened in the fabric of reality showing on the otherside   
serpentine black shadows and flickering blood-red skies.  
A non-light radiated between the holes and shrunk as the area seemed to   
spin around. Zelgadis watched as the whole thing seemed to shrink into   
nothing. Then the world was still, and Zelgadis could see how truly rundown   
the estate was.  
He struggled to his feet as Lina knelt down to Amelia's prone body.  
"Wake up, little one," she said softly, brushing the girl's hair back   
away from the sweat dampened face.  
"What did you do to her?" Zelgadis demanded. The purple figure moved to   
block his path to "Xellos's" apparent mistress. It didn't stop him from   
seeing Amelia stretch awake and bat golden eyes up at the fire-haired girl.  
"Who are you?" Amelia demanded. "Where are my parents? What did you   
people do to my parents?"  
"You made her..."  
"Your parents are long dead child," Lina told the girl. She addressed   
Zelgadis without moving from trying to calm the girl. "It was the only thing   
I could do to save her, the shinma had almost used up her soul."  
"Shinma?" Amelia repeated. Then she seemed to turn angry. "My parents   
are not dead, they were brought back!" Lina stood up and gestured for Amelia   
to do the same.  
"Careful," she admonished. "You're likely still weak."  
"What did you people do?"  
"Those weren't your parents, Amelia they were illusions. You have to   
come with me now."  
"You're not taking her any where she doesn't want to go," Zelgadis said   
firmly. He was holding the vajra out before him and had his other hand out   
in preparation to perform the chant again. Lina laughed sarcastically, but   
not unkindly.  
"How can you teach her what she needs to survive?" Lina asked as the   
scared girl edged toward her protector. "How can you help her control   
herself so no one else dies?"  
"What's she talking about?"  
"I'm turning a girl over to a monster!" Lina shook her head, looking at   
the ground, and then she smiled. She turned to leave laughing quietly.  
"That's funny you should say that," Lina said. "Well, perhaps you can   
teach her to be Kyuuketsi, if anybody other than me can. Anyway, I should be   
going now that my task is complete. Oh and don't worry about Kenji, he is   
beyond our world now." The girl gestured and Xellos vanished from sight,   
teleported away.  
"He was in such pain and didn't want to bear this world any longer," Lina   
explained with a regretful laugh. Zelgadis didn't know whether she   
explaining things to him or to herself. "So I gave him is own little fantasy   
world to live in. It's true Zelgadis."  
The girl closed the sliding doors and for a moment Zelgadis and Amelia   
could see her silhoutted by some unearthly white light.  
"Bye-bye," the girl said, then her silhoutte vanished, swirling into a   
single, small point.  
"What happened?" Amelia demanded of him. "Who are you?" Tears were   
streaming down her face.  
"I'm not sure," Zelgadis answered.  
  
Zelgadis walked down the street next to Amelia, the girl was still   
somewhat shell shocked from the night before. She had come to grips with her   
parents second "death," but she was still not comfortable knowing that her   
vampire game was no longer a game. Under the sunglasses and wide-brimmed   
hat, Amelia's eyes drifted to the figures of the beautiful people around her.  
She had decided to remain with Zelgadis, he wasn't certain why, except   
that they both had reasons to learn more about this girl calling herself   
Lina. Something grabbed her attnetion and Amelia reached to get Mr.   
Zelgadis' attention. He was already looking that way.  
"He's weird," one of the school girls in front of them said. "He just   
sits there all day doing nothing." Every one of them was a beauty in bloom   
and Amelia felt the new hunger rise in her throat.  
"I know what his secret is," one of the students suggested. It was an   
older girl with conservatively maintained hair.  
"Really?" somebody asked. "What is it?"  
"He's perfectly happy," the red-head told them. Zelgadis looked out and   
saw Kenji sitting on his swing again staring into space. Amelia glanced out   
into the park as well and saw the boy. She instinctively licked her lips,   
and then sighed as she realized it.  
"All we have to do is track down a shinma," Zelgadis said. "Where the   
shinma are, Lina will follow." The gaggle of school girls was leaving,   
unnoticed by Zelgadis. Amelia managed to suppress her desire and at least   
pretend to ignore their leaving.  
"Hai," she agreed and the pair walked on down the street.  
  
  
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